Telepathic Learning w/o breaking the game

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by ratsta

3. I'm mostly concerned with unreasonable access to knowledge. My character is an Historian obsessed with learning all there is to know. We're Humans adrift in a galactic milieux and we're supposed to be hunting for information, uncovering a vast tapestry of legend, intrigue and excitement. If I simply borrow the Royal Historian's History (Kingdom) skill, or the alien shaman's Hidden Lore (Galactic Mysteries) skill, the GM is going to throw his hands up and walk away! Any suggestion on how to NOT break my GM? :D

Thanks!

Unless you invest a large amount of points into the trait, and then find a once-in-several-generations historian with the relevant History skill at Attribute+10, you should be fine. The way I think of knowledge skills is that, typically speaking, they let you figure out enough about something to be useful. A successful roll (unless you get an incredibly high MoS, hence needing it at Attribute+10 to reliably pull this off) just tells you some information about your subject. Perhaps it tells you what culture built the tomb you just found, a bit of information on how their tombs are typically laid out (and protected), and maybe who scholars believe is buried in this particular tomb. It's not going to tell you its entire history, where the traps are located, the information that's included in the scrolls within the tomb (although you might know this culture tends to entomb a manuscript with the entombee's full genealogy and personal history, which may well be the information you're seeking), etc. You've still got to go into the tomb to get at the meat of the information you're seeking (or acquire admission into the library your borrowed History skill tells you has the books you need for what you're looking for, or whatever). Also, keep in mind that any skill you gain is temporary, at least until you replace it. You can spend a few months writing a book that you can later reference, but keep in mind real historians (and others who rely heavily upon knowledge-type skills) don't write books simply from memory - they cross reference other books, analyze artifacts, etc... and you won't have access to any of that just from borrowing someone's History skill.

Basically, so long as the GM doesn't have an NPC who could circumvent the whole adventure by telling you everything you need to know with a really good Reaction Roll (or due to mind control, or from being sufficiently reimbursed, or whatever), your ability to borrow skills should serve as a tool, not a way to skip the adventure the GM wrote.